What Is the Purpose of Social Security?
Social Security is a form of social insurance to protect individuals from financial hardships. Situations that affect a person's ability to provide for his family include disability, death and retirement. To ensure that money is available for beneficiaries, Social Security benefits are collected through payroll taxes and paid out when citizens meet specific criteria.
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Function
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Social Security is designed to protect citizens when they encounter social situations that make it difficult for them to provide for themselves. These protections include unemployment, old age and disability.
History
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Social Security began during the Great Depression to assist the elderly. President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed the original Social Security Act into law in 1935 to combat unemployment and poverty and provide benefits for surviving family members. The original provisions of the act excluded many service categories, including agricultural and domestic workers, but today Social Security benefits are paid for all industries.
Benefits
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Social Security benefits are paid to retirees, which lessens the burden on workers not eligible for pensions and retirement packages. In addition, Social Security has been instrumental in helping disabled workers financially. Finally, when a working family member dies, immediate family members can still have Social Security income available to them.
Effects
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A drawback of Social Security is that individuals who earn more than $100,000 pay Social Security taxes only on the first $97,500 of their earnings, but they receive full benefits when they become eligible. Furthermore, many eligible beneficiaries are excluded for reasons including not being married long enough before a spouse dies or being a same-sex couple.
Potential
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The baby boomer generation greatly outnumbers the two succeeding generations, and as more baby boomers retire, more money will be paid out to Social Security than is being paid into it. This has the potential to bankrupt the Social Security program for future generations who are already paying into the program.
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Resources
- Photo Credit http://waysandmeans.house.gov/legacy/images/socseccard.jpg
Comments
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! curiouser... & curiouser! the fact that the dollar was created with bondage in mind doesn't take away from the fact. That what you don't know does HURT YOU.
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Some good Information.
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Social Security needs to be repealed.
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"A drawback of Social Security is that individuals who earn more than $100,000 pay Social Security taxes only on the first $97,500 of their earnings, but they receive full benefits when they become eligible. " Another biased left winger writes an article! Yes, the reason there is a cap is because they will receive much less than their contribution EVEN AT THAT LEVEL! Social Security tax is not supposed to be a progressive tax (Although leftists want it to be to steal more money from those who earn it) - Its purpose is to make msure the elderly, and some disabled people, have a minimum living standard in worse case scenarios. It is not supposed to be a "tax the rich and give to the poor" program!
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curious....how could someone OWE social security, especially if they are disabled and elderly? Something is seriously wrong with this system
